why does CPUs/CPU cores seem to be capped at 3 – 4 Ghz since almost a decade?
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At the most basic level, you’ve got a conductor that can either have a charge or not at any given point in time. The limit on your clock speed is based on how fast you can switch between ‘charge’ and ‘no charge’.
Now, you can improve this speed by making ‘charge’ and ‘no charge’ closer together. That’s why you see the voltages on processors going down – it’s easier to switch between the two states when you have a shorter ‘distance’ to go.
Unfortunately, as you decreasing voltage and increasing switching speed, you run up against fundamental constraints on noise. There’s a low level of electrical ‘buzz’ going on all around you, including from the other components in your computer. Get too close to that and you can’t tell the difference between ‘charge’ and ‘no charge’.
This makes simply increasing clock speed exponentially more difficult. It becomes far more cost effective to simply come up with ways you can do more at lower clock speeds.
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